The seminar “Fashion and Cultural Studies II – Mapping the Global Fashion Landscape” situates fashion on a temporal and spatial topography of transformation. Engaging with and analyzing the paradoxes of this hyper-globalized field will be a key intellectual challenge of the course. This course introduces students to ethnography as a research method for critical fashion research and as a way to understand the world from the standpoint of its social relations. Through ethnographic fieldwork, students will engage directly with the fashion landscape in Vienna, and understand how the local interweaves with the global through complex patterns of consumption, production, and distribution.

As a final result of this course, students will collaboratively develop a final digital project report that synthesizes their insights from the course.

Possible formats for the final digital project report:

• Instagram story series
• Instagram carousel post
• Collaborative digital zine (PDF or flipbook)

Participation is crucial in this class because we will rely on in-class discussion to facilitate our analyses of the course texts and in participatory formats such as an ethnographic field trip. It is my hope that you will learn as much (or more) from each other as you will from me. Class participation means more than how much you say in class; it’s your effort to be present—both in mind and in body—in our discussions.

Attendance is particularly crucial in a discussion-based course.

To receive credits for this course, you have to fulfill the following requirements:

• There is an 80% attendance requirement for courses, this means that you can miss only one of the six course unit.
• Active participation in the class discussions, in-class activities, presentations and group assignments
• Active contribution in the final (digital) publication format

Course readings:

• Giulia Mensitieri, 2020 [2018]: The Most Beautiful Job in the World. Transl. Natasha Lehrer. London/New York: Bloomsbury, p. xi-10 and 55-79.
• Alessandra Mezzadri, 2017: The Chain and the Sweatshop. In: The Sweatshop Regime: Labouring Bodies, Exploitation, and Garments Made in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 16-41.
• Flavia Loscialpo, 2023: Ethno-Racial Capitalism within Contemporary Fashion: Forced Labour and the Uyghur Crisis. In: Fashion’s Transnational Inequalities: Socio-Political, Economic, and Environmental, edited by Anna-Mari Almila and Serkan Delice. London/New York: Routledge, pp. 29-46.
• Veronica Manlow, 2016: “Experiental Luxury Shopping at the Louis Vuitton Flagship in Paris: Dramas of Identity.” Clothing Cultures, Vol. 3., issue 1, p. 23-40.
• Annamma Joy, Jeff Jianfeng Wang, Tsang Sing Chan, John F. Sherry and Geng Cui, 2014: “M(Art)worlds: consumer perceptions of how luxury brand stores become art institutions.” Journal of Retailing 90, p. 347-364.
• David Fetterman, 2008: Ethnography. In: The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Reesearch Methods Vol. 1 & 2, edited by Lisa M. Given. Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore: Sage, p. 288-292.
• Frederic Larsen, 2019: “Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store.” Business History, Vol. 6, Issue 1, p. 155-171.
• Rohit K. Dasgupta & Nazlı Alimen, 2024: “Consuming and retailing fashion: South Asian diaspora negotiating clothing practices, identities and community making in Glasgow.” Social Identities, Vol. 30 issue 4, p. 306-330.